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I love to eat with friends. There is nothing like opening up the table and eating together, and right now I feel chock full of the goodness of eating together after this little run of birthday parties (Solo and Kai, more on that later) and guests. Five notable tables:

1. I already spoke of this one: a night when we were invited to go to a beautiful restaurant. I didn’t mention that when we arrived, the table was all ready for us with a sweet little Reserved sign on it. It felt very special.

2. Chinua and I went away for a night for our anniversary. This is the second time that Leaf and Brendan have made this possible for us (once was here in Pai as well, two years ago). We took Isaac, but warned him, “Enjoy yourself, because this is the last anniversary get-away that you’ll be invited to.” We were able to leave him with Leaf and Brendan for a few hours on Saturday and a few on Sunday morning. I didn’t take pictures of all the tables or all the goodness on them because I was all wrapped up in my Superstar Husband, but there were smoothies and cheesecake, carrot juice and coffee and late at night, another cheese board with some wine. Good tables in and of themselves, but mostly because of the company (and lack of company, if you know what I mean).

3. When we got back, on Sunday, Leaf had made a beautiful sweet potato, pumpkin and carrot soup, so we settled around the table again and heard the stories of all the fun things they’d done since we were gone. But we weren’t jealous.

4. And then, on Sunday afternoon, I had invited some friends over to teach me some Thai cooking. I’ve gone to a few Thai classes, but they always teach the same things: curries, pad thai. That stuff is useful, but what I want to do is crawl right inside the philosophy of cooking in Thailand, the same way I was able to in India. I want to be able to wear it, to walk into my kitchen and cook blindfolded. It’s a tall order, but I simplified it by asking my friends to show me the usual things: the things that people cook everyday. So we started yesterday. They have young children, so there were three babies and four preschoolers, and all my older kids. We cooked and I tried to learn the Thai names for different foods. And then we laid it all on the table and ate:We made fried rice, mushrooms with basil, egg tofu soup, and fried tofu and green beans. My friend Su made pumpkin in coconut milk for dessert and that blew my mind. I am always looking for ways to improve my table, to understand cooking and food and this endless business of keeping my family fed. It’s a long project. And I hope to begin writing some more food posts soon.

5. And the last is not table but kitchen. My Superstar Husband has taken on the reorganization of our kitchen and he’s rocking it with all these hooks and pails. I passed on the pail idea to him for the random sauces that we need to use all the time, which I got from Pinterest, making it a completed Pinterest idea! Whoo! But only because he ran with it. The bottles of soy sauce and fish sauce and everything else were cluttering our countertop and therefore our life and our brains and our universe. Now they are nicely put away. I am very, very happy with him.